Fragrant Christ

It is a sign of biblical literacy, if not basic cultural competence, to know that “Christ” was not Jesus’ second name nor his surname. Children in the Sunday School learn that Christ is from the Greek word χριστὸς and itself is a translation of Hebrew word Messiah מָשִׁיחַ and in both cases the meaning is “The anointed one”. And they also learn that anointing was an Ancient Near Eastern act of promoting persons to some high offices, to priesthood, kingship, occasionally to a role of prophet. Thus sur-name “Christ” is in fact an honorific title. Our modern theology and liturgy tries to highlight this original meaning by using expression "Jesus the Christ".      
    Nevertheless, the New testament writings and the Early Christianity were fully immersed in the Hellenistic Greek Culture and in it the inaugural anointing was not widely used and known. And thus already from the later parts of the New Testament onward the title Christ lost the meaning of an honorific title and started to function as a second name, it became part of a holy name (nomen sacrum).
    And this early (biblical) onset of pious ignorance is something you might not know about the New Testament Bible.

 

I mentioned that the Hebrew word messiah מָשִׁיחַ was an honorific title indicating that the person was inaugurated into some higher-ranking position by the act of anointing - pouring fragrant oil over them. Kings, priests and prophets were called anointed. 

    But the act of religious anointing (root משׁח) was not reserved for people alone. Religiously anointed were also the temple furniture (ark, lampstand, incense table, utensils) even the sanctuary/tabernacle itself. Anointing was a religious ritual consecrating objects or people as holy, setting them apart for special religious functions.

    Anointing was in fact a liturgically enacted metaphor with several interconnected meanings. 

Oils have preservative faculties that slow down rusting or rotting - thus anointing visualized and represented this desire to forestall decay. Before the invention of soap, oils played an important role in personal hygiene (rubbing oils on skin and scraping off dirt) - thus anointing was associated with cleanliness. Oils and ointments especially infused with herbs are used until now in medicine - thus anointing represented this desire to protect the health of the anointed. Oils infused with herbs were also used as perfumes, covering or repelling unpleasant odors. Here you need to understand that in ancient times it was about more than just cosmetics. Demons were believed to reek - thus anointing actualized repelling demons.

    Anointing was associated with preservation, cleanliness, health and repelling of demons, it was in fact apotropaic magic - a high brow religious ritual to set objects or persons apart and to express desire in protecting them from evil influences. 

    And this deep apotropaic function of anointing is something you might not know about the Bible (biblical religion).

 

And here is a YouTube video of the sermon: Fragrance of Loving Care.

Mythic Grains

Ugaritic tablet KTU 1.6 with text of part of Baal Cycle.

Among the Ugaritic Mythological texts, there is this interesting part of Baal myth (KTU 1.6.ii.31-37 in my translation and partly reconstructed from parallels).

     Goddess Anat grasped divine Mot,

     with a trashing blades she split him,

     with a fan she winnowed him,

     with fire she parched him,

     with millstones she ground him,

     on the steppe she scattered him,

     in the furrows she sowed him.

     His remains the birds did indeed eat,

     his remnants the sparrows did consume.

 

     Do you recognize how similar it is to the parable which Jesus said?! The one about the different seeds landing in different soils and about their different destinies.

     Well, I am not suggesting that Jesus copied ancient Canaanite myths, of course he did not. Those myths are twelve hundred years older and were buried in the ruins of the city for centuries.

     But Jesus was certainly drawing from the same treasure of religious metaphors. Those religious metaphors about grain date from great antiquity, from the beginning of farming, thousands of years before the time of Jesus or the time of Ugarit.

            And these mythical metaphors were not limited to Hebrew or Semitic people. It is likely that similar grain metaphors played an important role in the Greek Eleusinian Mysteries. And among the hairs of Celtic religion and culture are present in the ballad John Barleycorn must die (A friend Neil Nash alerted me to this fact.)

            In the New Testament Jesus is not the only one who uses this grain metaphor. Apostle Paul reached out to the same mythic treasure when he tried to explain to the Corinthians (1Cor15) the resurrection. He used the similar metaphor of grain being buried and then rising to new life.

            And thus through Apostle Paul and the parables of Jesus we share this important, meaningful and beautiful connection with the dawn of civilization, the beginning of agriculture, and the oldest shared hopes of transcending our mortality.

            And that is something you might not know about the Bible, about the New Testament metaphors and their deep, meaningful, mythical roots. 

 

Video version of this blog can be found here.

Martin Luther and Witches

One of our most watched video clips on YouTube is “Something you might not know about Martin Luther”.  It is provocative (definitely for some) but a truthful take on Luther’s visceral medieval belief in the existence of the Devil. Here is the link to this short video: https://youtu.be/-KPOMmDSPHU
    It became so “popular” because many faithful Protestants (especially Lutherans) became quite uneasy and unhappy about the content and shared their opinions and comments.
    I was born and brought up in one of Europe’s union denominations which was composed of both Lutherans and Calvinists and thus I received a thorough Lutheran upbringing and education. That way I know that true Lutherans do not worship Luther. He certainly was not a saint, he was a father of reformation but also a son of his time and shared many diverse and dangerous prejudices of his time.
    Besides the Devil or Satan, he also staunchly believed in the existence of witches. Luther is on record accusing witches of throwing charms on little children causing them such a sharp pain that they cried themselves to death. (Table talk in February and March 1533).
He also accused them of spoiling milk, eggs, and butter and for these minor infractions he approved the popular opinion that they should be burned (Table talk on 25 August 1538).
    We all know that was not a joke and how destructive this prejudice was costing hundreds and hundreds of innocent lives of those who for many different reasons did not fit within a tightly knit & rigid medieval/early modern society.
    But before we get all smug and finger pointing, accusing or ridiculing bigoted Luther and his superstitious times (or on the other side defending indefeasible!) - let us look where we are in our own world!
    Modern anthropologists (folklorists) find peculiarly close parallels between medieval witch prejudices and our modern anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.
    They share similar levels of prejudice, fear, and irrationality; similar tidbits of facts chained into the most bizarre combinations; similar illogical connections and narratives; and similar dangerous/destructive consequences - costing lives. Costing lives of those ensnared by these superstitions and unfortunately costing innocent lives of people around them. 

And that is something you might not know about ourselves and about our very own and dangerous superstitions and bigotry. 

    And now a word of hope and encouragement - Luther himself insisted he was not saved by his own goodness but by divine grace alone. We do not need to censor him or whitewash him. He certainly was a very conflicted and complex figure and he remains a bridge person from medieval prejudice into a more modern and more rational, enlightened paradigm.
    And exactly in this tension and transition between past and the future Luther can be our inspiration and our hope right where we are, tormented by our own manifold irrational political, medical and social conspiracy theories. 

Join us as we learn from the past to reach out forward for liberation and divine grace.   

 

And here is a video version of this blog. 

New Testament Creation Story

In the Acts of Apostles (chapter 17) we read about Apostle Paul preaching in Athens on Areopagus. Well, it is not really his sermon. Evangelist Luke wrote it, following the well- established custom of Hellenistic historiographers. They would simply make up speeches they considered appropriate for the occasion and their characters. So in this sermon we have what evangelist Luke thought that Paul would preach. Thus it is our window to the early Christian homiletic (preaching at the time of Luke).
            The opening part of that sermon is a beautiful New Testament creation story. It talks about God creating the world and everything in it, giving life and breath to all living creatures, and creating all peoples from one ancestor, and allotting them their space and time.
            Then the sermon makes a reference to a classical poet whom we now know was legendary Epimenides. This quotation hints the mystic panentheism - that God and creation overlap, “in God we live and move and have our being.”
            When the biblical creation story is mentioned people usually think only about the book of Genesis and its well-known creation in six days. Here you have a beautiful little gem - a New Testament Creation story in addition deeply influenced by Classical Greek philosophy.
And this New Testament Creation Story is something you might not know about the Bible.

 

Now let us look closer at Epimenides. The quotation in the Acts of the Apostles, in what is supposed to be Paul’s sermon but we know was written by evangelist Luke - this is not the only time this legendary Cretan philosopher was quoted approvingly in the Bible.

            Epimenides is not named but is being quoted in the letter to Titus (1:12). It is a letter supposedly written by Paul but it was certainly not written by him. It was written together with the other pastoral epistles (1^st and 2^nd Timothy) about a generation or two after Paul.

            I cannot stress enough how unusual that is! To have a Greek philosopher quoted in the Bible. And in addition it is the same Greek philosopher or more precisely this semi-legendary pagan prophet. And it is in the documents written at the similar time and both pretending to be written or spoken by Paul.

            What a strange coincidence! It can certainly suggest that pastoral epistles (1&2Timoty and Titus) and the writings of Evangelist Luke (his gospel and the Acts) might share some common background, if not outright the same author’s hand. And this strange closeness of evangelist Luke and Pastoral epistles is another thing you might not know about the bible. 

 

Biblical gender changes

The last two months we’ve been asking “Who wrote the bible?” In the process we made some surprising, eye opening, and liberating discoveries. Below in this blog you can check the older articles and here you can find some older videoclips and sermons.

But the Bible which we have in our hands was not finished when the last ancient author put down the pen. The biblical authors were followed by editors and translators. And you might be surprised how much “creative” freedom they exercised!

            For instance, they could invent and include an entire biblical story. Good example could be one of the best known biblical stories about a woman caught in adultery with the even more famous pronouncement who is without guilt throw the first stone. This entire story was not in the Bible for several centuries! It is certainly absent from the earliest manuscripts. And when it was finally included, it was not always where it can be found now (in John 8). Some manuscripts had it at the end of the Gospel of John and some others in the linguistically and stylistically more fitting gospel of Luke. So, here you have an example of what editors could do! It is a beautiful story and very much Jesus-like, teaching tolerance and forgiveness, there can be hardly any opposition against it. 

            But there are also more sinister changes to the Bible. For example, those which were generated by the vicious misogyny of the later church. And so ancient editors and biblical translators (some of them until now) actively engaged in gender change of a number of biblical characters.

            In the original texts of Pauline letters were some prominent female characters like Euodia, or Synthyche (in the letter to Phillipians)  or Junia (in the letter to Romans) - but by different hands at different times, by different editors and translators all three of these women were made into males. We know (because they told us) that at least some of those who did it were unable to accept the reality that proud and strong women played important roles in early apostolic church.

            And so conservative patriarchal editors and translators (among them the translators of the King James Bible) actively engaged in quite a radical activity of gender change.

 

And these willful textual gender changes are something you might not know about the bible.

 

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And here are all the video episodes from this series "Who wrote the bible?"

Moses - "Moses In Attic - Lies about the Torah's age?" https://youtu.be/pbUz-PihKo8

David - "David the Hellene - was he a Jewish mercenary?" https://youtu.be/gtesJfLluC8

Isaiah - "Gospel In Cuneiform - Was she really a virgin?" https://youtu.be/Dp8G8Pm4nmI

Daniel - "Biblical Hopscotch - Apocalyptic Delirium?" https://youtu.be/e84fVv43gb4

Luke - "Hellenistic Luke - Biblical Entertainment?" https://youtu.be/F_qG1T3nSws

Not Paul - "Pauline Forgery - Biblical lies?" https://youtu.be/47H3oaPPhuk

Paul's Disciples? - "Biblical Fraudster At Work?" https://youtu.be/dv1fGElAix8

Editors and translators - "Biblical Gender Changes" https://youtu.be/wnQaHFeOuhI

 

Biblical fraudster in action

In 2 Thessalonians (2:2) the author (supposedly the Apostle Paul) warns his readers against a fake letter written in his name and forged to deceive and mislead recipients.
     Wait a moment! What? Isn’t that a definition of a fraud? How could it be mentioned just that matter-of-factly? Such a blatant fraud must had been a reason for alarm! Unmasking and stopping the fraudster should have been the first item on the agenda. It should have been the primary focus of this letter. Subtle matters of theology could have waited.
     Well, there was a reason why it was not the primary focus. The situation was even more serious because this casual warning against a fraud letter was itself not written by Paul, it was written by a fraudster himself!  
     From the end of the 18th century there were serious doubts about Paul’s authorship of the Second Thessalonians. And throughout the 19th century academic theologians reached the consensus; the Second Thessalonains was not written by an apostle. There are multiple reasons for it starting with vocabulary, grammar, style, theology and its tone. But beyond all this forensic linguistics, this letter also contains several recognized forgery techniques and among them is this casual warning against the fraud. It is a known fraudulent maneuver.
     Here you have a Biblical fraudster crying “Beware of fraud!” And that is something you might not know about the Bible.

Now, why do I bring this up?
Firstly, because the truth and honesty is of the utmost value.  
Secondly, I bring it up to defend apostle Paul. He has been accused of many faults - misogyny, militarism, support of slavery, stiff conservative values... Much of it is in those fake letters, in those, which he did not write.
Thirdly, the church, theologians but also regular ministers and church members need to face the fact that more than half of the New Testament letters are fake. And they are not innocently fake, they are like our example of premeditated deceitful forgeries.
Here I would like to share an archeology parable:
Middens - ancient rubbish-piles - are an invaluable source of information for modern archeology.
Archeologists can learn from the ancient garbage more than from any ancient monuments or artistic masterpieces.
Biblical fake letters are like those middens - garbage piles. They were created by throwing things out and piling them up. And like those piles they offer us unfiltered insight into the second century church and its struggles, the nice the neutral and the ugly. We can observe how they lived, what they valued, what they struggled about and perhaps we can learn what to do and what not to do.
Approaching these letters as middens is a revealing, enlightening and liberating experience. 

Pauline Forgeries

The first column of Colossians
from the Codex Sinaiticus

I vividly remember reading Colossians in Greek during my seminary studies in Prague. Right away the first chapter is just 6 Greek sentences. Very, very, very long and convoluted complex sentences. Each sentence is a paragraph long and one has as many as 158 words! Any normal modern attempt for translation had to divide those 6 sentences into smaller chunks.

            That language is simply not from Paul, NO WAY! Paul’s own sentences are usually half as long, pointed, argumentative, with a drive and his grammar and syntax were also different.

          These are all features of language which do not change easily - you can change your style for artistic reasons but it would be strange not to say contra-productive in a letter. In a letter it is desirable to come across as recognizable by the recipient(s).

            Of course this suspicion of biblical forgeries is nothing new. There were ancient doubts about some of the writings (Hebrews) and from the end of the 18^th century there is ever growing and persuasive arguments in that direction.

            But it is one way to hear about it and read about it and it is something different to experience it first hand. From this early experience I have been convinced that Colossians, Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians, 1st and 2nd Timothy, Titus and of course Hebrews were not written by apostle Paul. They are pious forgeries. (Well, Hebrews does not claim to be by Paul - so it is not really this kind of an intentional forgery.)

            And that is something you might not know about the bible and quite likely something you have hardly ever heard in a church. 

 

Biblical forgeries will be our theme next Sunday. This Sunday will be about the genuine Pauline letters, but even they have some interesting and profound surprises.